


the aerodynamics of paper planes

by mister all rounder (jeadore)



Category: X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mention of breathplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:00:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22347583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeadore/pseuds/mister%20all%20rounder
Summary: this is what friends are for: to help each other out—mend broken hearts together and stuff like that.
Relationships: Cho Seungyeon | Seungyoun/Han Seungwoo, Kim Yohan/Lee Hangyul
Comments: 22
Kudos: 160
Collections: 99&UP Fic Fest





	the aerodynamics of paper planes

**Author's Note:**

> what kind of monster writes slightly sad yohangyul? me ofc. (it has a happy ending! i swear!)
> 
> based on Prompt #188:  
>   
> "Yohan loves his Seungwoo hyung. Hangyul loves his Seungyoun hyung. But both Yohan and Hangyul's feelings aren't reciprocated, causing them to start messing around with each other to let out their desperation. To distract them from a heartbreak. Well, friends should help each other, they said. (Yohangyul best friends to fwb to lovers au)" 
> 
> i don't know if any of you wanted or expected something like this, but i still hope you like it.  
> enjoy!
> 
> ps: thank so much to my lovely betas, you're doing the god's work! and to the lovely mods!!

  
  


MICROPROBLEMA | MICRO PROBLEM   


Si le sumo mi soledad a la tuya | If I add my loneliness to yours  


¿qué es lo que obtengo a cambio? | what do I get in return?  


¿Dos soledades o ninguna? | two loneliness or none? 

It ends at the tattoo shop, with Yohan asking a million questions and fidgeting constantly every time the needle is on, but it begins in the employee’s room of Krispy Kreme, as Hangyul hastily changes into his uniform.

It starts with a:

“Seungwoo hyung and Seungyoun are on a date right now,” Yohan informs him, without averting his eyes from the phone screen.

Followed by:

“Hey, wanna make out?” Hangyul replies.

(It starts with the two of them being lost, hopes crushed to the ground and hearts bare open to the core. It probably is a ghost feeling, a somatic representation of their messed up minds, but their first kiss tastes wet and salty.)

It’s not like they need to talk about it. They’ve been friends for over a year now and they’ve been working together for a little more than that, sharing almost every shift and every story together. Hangyul is an Incheon child, raised between the sea and the airplanes, while Yohan is a purebred Seoulite, used to commute miles for a kind of shitty paying job and an almost unreachable dream.

It wasn’t luck that pulled them together, but the weird schedule the manager of Krispy Kreme set that have them working together more often than not. Selling coffee and snacks until the late hours of the night, that Yohan usually misses the last train home and has to crash in Hangyul’s house.

The Airport of Incheon is a big bubble of glass and steel, air con polluted and inhabited like a small city, its visitors coming and going—faces full of restless weariness and expectations. Alongside with the cacophony of steps and murmurs, they get used to witness new faces every day, so they inexorably start to appreciate the ones that they see often. Other airport employees that smile at them amicably or regulars that buy coffee and chocolate doughnuts with a beaming expression on.

There’s probably something really wrong about building a home in a place made for transit, but Yohan and Hangyul still did it. Now they have to deal with the cracks and the shambles.

“Do you want to go for budaejjigae?” Hangyul asks by the end of their shift, when they are in the employee’s room changing out of their obnoxious yellow polo shirt uniform into autumn clothes.

Yohan doesn’t want to. He would rather go home early and sleep it off or train until his muscles scream for a break. But one glance at Hangyul and his resolve crumbles. As exhausted and emotionally drained as he feels, Hangyul is ten times worse. And unlike Yohan, Hangyul thrives on going out. So he nods. “Let’s just add a beer or something.”

It’s not like they need to talk about it, because they know the other damn well and they’ve witnessed the other falling fast and falling hard in love. But two bottles of soju and a bland budaejjigae into the night and Hangyul spills.

“I should have known better. It’s just that… he came by our shop all the time, sometimes buying small things, but staying for hours until his flights would depart on those fucking uncomfortable seats we have. And we talked a lot, you know? We called each other  _ co-workers _ ,” Hangyul says and accompanies it with a small laugh, a hollow chuckle splattered with disbelief and sorrow. “But not co-workers like we are, Yohannie. It was more like a running joke? A promise? We… we talked about leaving the city and moving to somewhere near Busan because we are fakes and we kind of still need a city, and opening up together a kiosk in the beach. No managers nor stress, just us, the sea and smoothies.”

“He’s an asshole,” Yohan decides. “I only thought he came by because Seungwoo hyung’s desk is in front of Krispy. Not that you two planned a future.”

“But it’s not his fault, you know? He must have been really excited to see Seungwoo hyung and I just… I just confused friendliness with interest. I’m that stupid, we both know.”

No, he’s not. No matter how many playful jabs they throw at each other, that’s a lie. But Hangyul believes it, truly believes it and that is downright wrong. Lee Hangyul is far too good and playful, far too happy to be downhearted. To be there, sitting with water weighting in his eyelashes and grimness brimming in his lips as he mutters his ache between small choked hiccups. 

It takes Yohan a while to realize that he might be the first person to witness this side of his friend.

(Yohan wants to kick Seungyoun’s handsome face for leading Hangyul on. Or to do something way worse.

He kisses Hangyul hard out of spite and lets Hangyul jerk him off in the restaurant’s small bathroom. The air is impregnated with the smell of pre-cum, soju and desperation. It isn’t right, but it doesn’t feel wrong either.)

(Hangyul is a chronic giver. He gives his smiles, his time, his attention away and expects nothing in return. Just the satisfaction of knowing the other is happy.

He gives his whole self away and doesn’t complain when he isn’t noticed. Instead, he crashes in himself. He plummets in the nearest chair and becomes an empty shell of himself when he thinks nobody is watching.

There’s nothing in the world that urges Yohan more than to make Hangyul aware of how much he appreciates it.)

Maybe he doesn’t realize it, maybe he does it absent mentally, but Yohan stares more often than not towards the information desk. Even if he hides himself behind the cash register, he is not really sneaky. If anything, Yohan is a stark figure--big round eyes rimmed by wilted eyelashes and full rosy lips with a permanent sigh written in its chapped skin against the bright and obnoxious shop’s surroundings. 

Without thinking it twice, Hangyul grabs a few old tickets and a pen firmly and, at the very moment Sihun arrives to start his shift, he calls for their break. Terminal 1 is oddly calm for a day with big dark clouds obscuring the firmament, so Hangyul comfortably leads Yohan all the way up the four floors, beyond the souvenir shops, restaurants and administration offices.

“I’ll show you a secret,” Hangyul starts as he turns left in a dim hallway. “Once in middle school we came to play hide-and-seek here. It was really cool, okay? The airport is a huge arena for a game like that. I wandered around a bit and found  _ this _ . They’ve never found me,” he boasts, squared shoulders and sufficient grin.

Bragging about being lost. Yohan can’t help but snicker at that. “The rooftop?”

“The airport rooftop,” Hangyul corrects him. The door clicks open easily and the sight of still stormy skies greet them, mixed with the lights of the city in the background and a grand plane taking off with its deafening sound.

Yohan’s eyes grow bigger and rounder and his lips part, sheer awe written all over his face. Amazement looks good on him, Hangyul decides. Way better than raw distress or dire apathy. He doesn’t even find it in himself to mock him. 

Instead, he calls Yohan’s attention by blocking his sight with a ticket. 

“Here. Write your thoughts,” Hangyul commands as he uncaps the pen, “and set them free. Let them go.”  _ Seungyoun will never love me _ , he writes quickly, broad letters almost smudged together. Then he folds the paper in half, brings the top corners towards the crease and keeps folding until the paper becomes an aircraft, a poor representation of the ones departing every five minutes. 

Under Yohan’s curious gaze, Hangyul steps closer to the railing and throws the paper plane towards the stormy skies, towards the unknown, towards the ground. 

“Let them go,” he repeats. “Crash and burn.”

“Like a message in a bottle?”

“We’re a bit too far from the sea to do that,” Hangyul snorts. There’s just city around them. Asphalt and neon lights, smoke and overcrowded loneliness. “Besides, those are more like silent cries for help.”

“Isn’t this the same?”

Yohan writes down a  _ Seungwoo’s calm smile makes me swoon _ , folds the paper messily and sends it off.

Crash and burn.

(It becomes kind of a habit. To go back to Hangyul’s house or to take the train to Hongdae, to mess around in small employee rooms or in club’s dirty bathroom stalls, to do paper planes.

Even if they are competitive guys, they’ve never measured the way they hearts broke. They may bet on who sells more doughnuts, who walks faster towards the airport’s exit, who sees more celebrities per day.

Never on who makes more paper planes.)

The rooftop is all cement, steel and big clouds, and they find themselves oddly at ease there. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot. You know, fly everywhere, be free, cross every sky, every sunset. To see rain at eight thousand miles up there, to stay on the clouds.”

“And what changed your mind? What would you like to be now?”

“Who says I don’t want to anymore?" Hangyul asks, an annoying grin pulling up the corner of his lips. "But Pilot school. It’s fucking expensive. I couldn’t ask my parents all that money.”

They chew a lollipop that Yohan bought this morning on his way to work. And because Hangyul is a big baby with a hidden sweet tooth, he saw it and asked for it.

“Well, there’s a silver lining,” Yohan says. “If you were a pilot, you wouldn’t see your family as often. Also, it’d be difficult for you to be with someone with a normal job.”

“I could be with lots of someones with normal jobs in different cities.”

“You aren’t like that,” Yohan dismisses and bites the lollipop, cracking the candy into two halves.

Hangyul agrees under his breath as he steals a half. No, he isn’t. But he also isn’t the type to fuck around with people, less a friend, and here he is: fighting for a piece of candy from inside his best friend’s mouth. Licking his lips, his teeth, the candy, the roof of his mouth. Caressing the inner of his best friend’s thigh with a hand and playing with the waist of his jeans with the other.

  
  
  


Hangyul is a snuggler. Not that it's very surprising--beyond his first impression, the manly features and strong facade, he's always been prone to half hugs and nonchalant touches. Tight embraces, legs intertwined and soft nuzzing along his neck, his pulse, his heartbeat. Even in the dirty sheets, with their bodies spent and their breathing irregular (especially in the dirty sheet, with their bodies spent and their breathing irregular), Hangyul brings Yohan closer to his chest and draws with his fingertips odd patterns on his skin, strange routes of escape, paths that are struck by the stormy weather and that finish with the landing of a sticky kiss.

What throws Yohan off his axis is not Hangyul’s demeanor, but his own. No flinching, no awkward giggle, no snarky comment. Utter and soothing ease.

“Hey, about us…” Yohan starts. “We are…we, huh.”

Hangyul blinks and nods, slowly. “Maybe we should set some rules.”

“Rules? That’s so Seungwoo,” Yohan comments without thinking and the second after he cringes. Awkward.

“And you were about to talk feelings, that’s so Seungyoun,” Hangyul fires back. Then he winces and frowns. “You know what? Fuck it. Fuck it all. We are doing just fine.” And he hugs Yohan closer, chest to chest, morphing small snarls into love bites in his neck. Trading words for kisses, emotions for feelings.

  
  


(It's almost pavlovian by now. Whenever one of them mentions Seungwoo or Seungyoun, the other reaches out to close their lips together. Or at least when they are not in public, not in Krispy Kreme, not in front of their love interests nor onlookers’ judgement. Those times they hold the other’s hand, massage their shoulder, share a glance.

The way the other always kisses back, for sure is.)

  
  


As they fold and fold old tickets, flyers and emotions, they fall into a routine of doing small talk until the moment they are able to take their breaks together. The kind of talk that is meant to never be heartfelt and that sometimes fall into random answers between serving clients and cleaning the counter, but feels indispensable.

“Have you ever wondered how the paper planes became a thing?” Yohan asks as he doodles something in the wing of his plane. It looks like a caricatured dog with long black ears, or hair—Yohan has always sucked at drawing. “Why did someone do it the first time?”

“A representation of the real thing,” Hangyul answers, tone remarked with obviousness and a tilt of sarcasm. With a swiftly move he gestures ahead, towards the wall of glass, towards where a monstrosity of white painted metal is turning on its engine. “Aircraft, paper plane.”

“But it’s not really like the real thing. The wings aren’t ever balanced, it never follows the right route nor land where you want, it almost always crashes. It’s so faulted.”

Hangyul shrugs. “I don’t know, dude. Abstraction?” A bunch of foreigners crowd the information desk, some of them stealing glances of the chocolate doughnuts in Hangyul’s hands, not even noticing the employees behind the counter. They feel overlooked, forgotten. It doesn’t really annoy them anymore. “It’s not like all of us can afford the real thing.”

“So we settle for less?” Yohan deadpans, curiosity and fear pooling at the base of his stomach. Then he forces a few giggles out, a nervous try to ease himself, to swim out of the dark waters. “I guess it’s just something different.”

“Yeah. Something different,” Hangyul agrees, dimly. “And sometimes it lands right.”

“But we want our planes to crash, don’t we?”

They throw jokes around about airport security on their tails and drop the subject off. Not their paper planes. Those they carry up the four floors to the rooftop and send them off, to their silent, explosive finale.

Dazed and entranced by the weird calm of Seoul in the wee hours, Yohan traces the tattoo in Hangyul’s shoulder blade. A compass interlaced with flowers and a ring around its orbit, like pulling gravity, like Yohan falling into Hangyul’s kisses. There’s a meaning hidden behind it, but Yohan doesn’t ask—not because he is afraid of it, but because he knows his friend well. Filial son Lee Hangyul, devoted and level-headed, inked his feelings and, probably, his fears in his skin.

“This is why you almost never get lost?” Yohan jokes instead. “Bet your mother loved it.”

“I feel lost all the fucking time,” Hangyul blurts and barks a laugh. “And my mom isn’t a fan of tattoos, but she's my North. And she loves pink lilies.”

Yohan hums and traces towards the south, following the line inked there like a parallel to Hangyul’s spine, until it disappears in the tanned skin. Nevertheless, his fingers continue its path, dipping into the back muscles as if he were in a trance. Hangyul shivers and says nothing.

“Seungwoo hyung has a few tattoos too, you know?” Yohan mumbles. Tattoos look cool, he decides, like meaningful pieces of arts, like small visual hints of a person’s mind.

Hangyul furrows his eyebrows. “Yeah? Hard to say with the long sleeves shirts he wears.”

“Sometimes he lets his collar loose,” Yohan says—something between an explanation and a justification. “He has words on his neck and under his collarbone. Not sure what they say, though. Seungyoun has them too, right?”

“A bunch of them, yeah. You’ve seen them in his Instagram, stalker.”

“Not a stalker,” Yohan complains immediately. “I just wanted to know what kind of guy he was so I could tease you.” An impregnate silence grows between them for a moment, saturated with awkwardness and sardonic smiles. And then: “Is that why you like him?”

“Part of, yes.”

Yohan traces again the tattoo, with his lips this time. Kisses every petal of the lilies and noses the stele of the ring. Falls into Hangyul’s gravity pull.

“It hurts?”

“The tattoo or Seungyoun?” Hangyul mumbles against the other’s lips. By the tone of his words it’s another joke, another tease, like he usually does. The punchline isn’t funny. “Yeah, it does.”

By the end of November, the sky is polluted and heavily saturated with fine dust. People were asked to stay inside unless necessary and Incheon Airport is buzzing with yearns for brighter days and worries about cancelled or delayed flights. The firmament is fogged, obscured with dirt and dread, concealing the city skyline and blurring the city lights, so up there in the rooftop there’s only freezing cold and transient loneliness. It isn’t as unbearable as they once had thought. Maybe because they are together in their secret spot.

Cladded in padding coats and leaning against each other, Hangyul asks what his dream is.

“Who says I have one?” Yohan replies, a sardonic tone that sounds incorrect, utterly wrong in him.

“That’s sad,” Hangyul says, voice muffled by the mask. “We all have a dream, even a little one." 

“Well, I am sad," he affirms, blunt and sharp like only someone who has let sorrow be ingrained into his soul can. "I dreamt about having a family. You know, the perfect stereotype family. A nice wife, a son who I could teach, I don’t know, taekwondo or something, and a daughter who would be my little princess. But surprise: turns out I’m gay.  _ And _ turns out that the only guy I liked doesn’t like me back. There goes my dream," Yohan explains, a little hiss at the end of every sentence. "Funny how I thought it would be so easy to reach when I was younger," he adds, under his breath, behind the mask, painfully audible.

Bitterness doesn't go well with Yohan. Feels out of place, unwelcomed on his fresh face. Like a string, it pulls something in Hangyul and makes him lean closer to him to blur it before it cracks the surface.

“Hey, don’t. You’ll have a family eventually. And a little princess or prince to spoil," he assures him, talking almost in his ear. Hangyul's voice is firm, honest. "And who knows, maybe there’s a ton of Seungwoos out there that will break your heart until one, huh, won’t.”

Yohan breaks into laughter-- bitterness smudged by warmth. “A ton of Seungwoos? Dude, that’s hot. And scary. I don’t know if I want it anymore."

The other shrugs and murmurs something that gets lost in the thundering noise of airplanes departing. 

Fine dust is sticking to them like a second layer of skin and messing with their sight, but they don't go anywhere. They continue to sit there, in the midst of cold and lonely fog, until they are required to go back to work.

They play a game of airport codes to pass the time. Hangyul wins by a thin margin. 

  
  
  


(Yohan is naïve. Not in sex, but in love.

He’s been raised with an ideal that has seeped into his bones, into his furthest and deepest desires, and has grown there, strong and driving. He doesn’t talk about it usually, yet his actions speak louder about his belief. About a sudden, passionate love that might burn him alive, but his companion is too good and soft to let him. A never-ending, unchanging love.

He truly believes in it and there’s nothing in the world that Hangyul would like to preserve more.)

  
  
  
  
  


The thing is: they keep seeing Seungwoo and Seungyoun. Hard not to when one of them works right in front of them and the other comes and goes all the time, unaware and totally oblivious of their feelings, of the storms inside their minds. Arguably, they’ve all become friends and friends don’t change their behaviour suddenly, without a reason. And if the reason is found out, if it floats bare and heavy in the open, it might be mortifying.

And overall, they don’t find it in them to be petty just because the others fell in love.

Even if it’s not in them. 

"What are you doing?" When Hangyul raises his head, Seungyoun is there. Smiling amicably and cheerful, like always. Effortlessly dressed like the man of his dreams, maybe a little more hip hop. He's carrying only a small designer shoulder strap bag, something that a traveler wouldn't have no matter how often they travel.

"Just writing dumb stuff. Yohan and I," he starts explaining as vaguely and honestly as he can. He peeps down, towards the half folded paper with bold letters, and hurries to put it aside, behind the cash machine. “We do this dumb thing."

"You send each other messages like that?” Seungyoun raises his barely existent eyebrows, curiosity peaked. Who knows, maybe he’ll turn it into a new song for the Chinese star he works with. “Through paper planes? That's cute "

Hangyul shrugs, nonchalant. Without asking, he starts preparing the usual for Seungyoun--an iced americano with two spoons of sugar and six cubes of ice. "We never read what the other writes."

  
  
  
  
  


More often than not, Seungwoo seems to look towards Krispy Kreme with an apologetic smile and soft eyes. It’s slightly disquieting, if they are honest. But they pay no mind--it's quite characteristic of Han Seungwoo to feel burdened and sorry for lots of things, even the ones that escape his control. 

Until one day Han Seungwoo stands in front of the counter, apologetic eyes in full force and the calm stance prior to a plane crash. Majestic and unavoidable. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, firm and loud in the ears. Then he leaves something on top of the counter, under Yohan’s gaze. The paper has Yohan’s scribbles and old folding marks. “I truly am.”

Yohan stares at the paper, mouth agape and trembling fingers. There are questions dancing in his mind, stuck in his tongue. Hangyul voices them, a tiny bit more brusque.

Nevertheless, Seungwoo is as soft and firm as always. “Maintenance team has been cleaning and collecting these from the entrance for a while now. Some of them have my name,” he points out, almost uselessly. Repetitive. As if he were explaining to a pair of tourists. “I’ve had my suspicions, baseless. But the other day Seungyounie…” 

The air is stagnant, dense with despair. A few planes depart and others land in this long interlude. Maybe a plane is really crashing somewhere.

”Please refrain from doing more rubbish.”

“Those are our feelings,” Hangyul snarls, sheer rage and indignation overtaking his husky voice for maybe the first time. 

Seungwoo looks taken aback, surprised and regretful. “That’s not what I mean. Maintenance team--...I’m sorry.”

  
  
  
  
  


(They hug in the back of the employee’s room. It’s not close-fitting, but loose and supportive. It started as a chest to chest embrace, soon developing to a comfortable back hug, arms interlaced and holding each other every second.

"Hey, wanna go to the rooftop?"

Yohan shakes his head. "Too cold outside," and he snugs closer.

At some point, Hangyul realizes he spent his whole birthday hugging his best friend in a small, cramped room. If it helps Yohan’s heart not to crack deeper, it’s worthy.)

  
  
  
  


As a late birthday gift, Yohan obsequies Hangyul a flight simulator, joystick included. When the other says nothing, Yohan stutters and tries to explain himself, his choice, his messy thoughts. 

“It’s a representation of the real thing. I’d like to give you Pilot school, but I’m poor too. And until we, you can afford it, you can use this to practice. It’s not the same, I know, but landing will depend on you and--”

“Yohan, shut up,” Hangyul asks with a breathy smile. When he looks up, his eyes are soft and watery. “I love it. Thanks, dude.”

They start kissing there, next to the lockers with their obnoxious bright uniforms, not out of need nor desperation, but of something akin to thankfulness and appreciation. Deeper and warmer, even. 

It escalates quickly, though—tongues licking the roof of the other’s mouth, arms secured around the other’s neck, thumbs caressing the hip bones, leg between thighs making pressure, urging. To the point of ditching their plans for soju and budaejjigae and going straight to the nearest and cheapest hotel, barely a few minutes away from the Airport. 

They land onto the bed as a one big, giggling mess. Legs tangled, chests almost touching, skin separated by the rough fabric of their hoodies that soon disappears. Hangyul noses Yohan’s necks, breathes him in—fine dust and citrus— and closes his lips around the Adam’s Apple. 

Under him, Yohan gasps and pleads. “Choke me.”

“With my thighs?” Hangyul jokes, out of habit. They once competed on who had the thickest thighs, but never settle on a rightful winner. “I prefer yours.”

Yohan shakes his head as he grabs Hangyul’s big and warm hands, as he timidly guides them towards the white column of his neck. The other opens his eyes wide when he gets it, pupils shaking. 

“Please,” he asks. Full of shame and shameless at the same time, fairly knowing that the other wouldn’t refuse if it means to make him happy. “I trust you.”

“Tell me if you want me to stop.”

Except that he never does, because his best friend is too good and caring to actually wield the pressure needed to drive Yohan into le petite mort. Still, when climax hits him--and,  _ oh _ , it hit him--, his senses enhance, tasting colors and hearing a musky, sweet scent. 

Light-headed and giddy, Yohan opens his eyes to Hangyul crashing on top of him, heavy breathing and pretty smirk, and kissing the beauty mark above Yohan's eyebrow.

Their bodies might be burning, but it doesn't feel like a representation of the real thing.

  
  
  
  
  


"What are you doing on Christmas?" Yohan asks before they part ways at the entrance of the train station. They're going home early tonight, no going to Hangyul's house nor hanging out together in a club of Hongdae.

"Work. I'm gonna cover Sihun's shift so he can go out with his girlfriend."

“Dude, that sucks. Yuvin asked the day off too, you’ll be all alone.” 

Hangyul shrugs. They get paid extra on holidays and it’s not like he had any choice or something better to do. 

They bid the goodbyes before Hangyul pushes him forward, hurrying him to not lose his ride. No commute together in the back seats of the night bus nor being plastered against each other and the train glass window by the crowd tonight. 

Nor the next day or the following one, because Yohan isn’t working these holidays and all he does is hang around with his family and other friends. Hangyul barely answers his texts, always at midnight, when he finishes his shift. 

It’s weird, a quasi empty hole in his day, a source of uneasiness.

The ride is long and familiar, unlike Hangyul’s astonished expression. His face is a poem and if Yohan were any good at words, he would write a hundred of old tickets. Odes to his sharp sculptural angles, smooth hair, thick eyebrows and pretty hooded eyes wide open. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Yohan wonders the same. “Just wanted to annoy you,” he explains. “Working alone in Christmas’ Eve must be a pain in the ass.”

Hangyul winces and nods in reticent agreement. Terminal 1 is overly crowded, filled with passengers sitting and waiting in every spot possible to catch the flight back to their loved ones or to escape loneliness before it becomes devastating. Small luggages, big hopes. 

“Maybe you didn’t choose the best moment,” Hangyul murmurs, deep voice almost lost in the Airport’s cacophony. Yohan follows his gaze and is met with the boisterous crowd, Seungyoun standing in the middle of it. He’s not alone. 

Seungyoun stands in front of the information desk, with an obnoxiously huge Snoopy plushie and a bouquet of lilacs and a lovestruck face. A few onlookers take pictures discreetly and not-so-discreetly of him and of Seungwoo. Seungwoo,  _ the birthday guy _ , his mind reminds him. Seungwoo, who wears loose long sleeves and a expression akin to his boyfriend’s. Lovestruck. Bliss, a bit of cringe because of the public, and fondness dripping from his slanted eyes like honey. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Hangyul asks. 

Yohan shrugs. “Yeah. No, I’m… yeah. And you?” 

Hangyul shrugs too. “I’m not into grand gestures.”

  
  
  
  


(It’s about to finish with the two of them kissing in the rooftop. It’s freezing, almost like about to snow. Their lips hurt when they meet, when they swell, when they bruise. It is a somatic representation of their hazed minds, a ghost feeling, but it tastes sweet and like realization.)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s probably something really wrong with their hearts and minds that keep building a home in a place made for transit when they still deal with old cracks and shambles. But habit is a wicked thing, and Hangyul finds himself pouring his feelings onto the back of an old ticket. Then he folds it carefully, aiming for the best representation of an actual aircraft.

He’s not going to the rooftop tonight—not going to crash and burn it, not if it depends on him.

He lifts it into the air and sends it off, with a small prayer and his heart attached on it. The landing goes smoothly and perfectly on top of the counter, right under his best friend’s gaze.

Startled, Yohan looks at it curiously and then at the sender, questions and wonders written all over his face like small scribbles. Hangyul holds back a grin and gestures him to open it. 

_ be my someone with a normal boring job _ , Yohan reads.

“Your job is normal and boring too!” Yohan says. “We work together!”

And Hangyul promptly breaks into laughter. “So let’s have normal boring jobs together. For a long time.”

Expectation, anxiousness and fear are mixed in the mirth. It takes a moment for Yohan to realize that he might be the first person who Hangyul is giving something to and asking for something in return.

Everything dissipates when Yohan nods, eagerly. Firm.

(In the train ride to Hongdae, plastered against each other and against the window by the crowd, Hangyul imprints flowers with his lips and teeth on the white skin of Yohan’s neck. A rosy swelling bouquet, a  _ mine _ , that has Yohan gasping.

Torn between the sensations and the awkwardness of being in public, Yohan lets himself fall right into Hangyul’s gravity pull.)

  
  
  
  
  


It began at the employee’s room of Krispy Kreme, with Yohan being too pending of social media for his own good, but it ends at the tattoo shop, as Hangyul circles around the chair, trying to get a glimpse of his boyfriend’s left arm. 

It finishes with a:

“That’s fucking cheesy,” Hangyul blurts, without averting his eyes from the fine line design.

Followed by a:

“It’s our feelings,” Yohan complains, bewildered.

“Still cheesy,” Hangyul says as he smoothly caresses the inked paper plane over the film, soft eyes and fond smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'll be honest: i'm kind of satisfied with this story. but i'd love to read your opinions!  
> thanks for reading!!


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